I think the first telegraph message sent read "What hath God wrought?" You'd think the last one might be something memorable -- Good night and good luck, So long and thanks for all the fish, something!
Posted on 02/13/2006 9:59:43 AM PST by abb
Late last month Western Union sent its final telegram, ending an era whose arrival was far more revolutionary than the onset of email or instant messaging. It was the telegraph that knit the world together -- once transatlantic cables arrived in the 1860s, information flew around the globe in hours, instead of days or weeks; in terms of information transfer, the phone, fax, email and IM are little more than variations on that theme.
In 1929 more than 200 million telegrams were sent; last year, there were around 20,000, and the telegram had long since become an old-fashioned ritual that inspired equal parts amusement and nostalgia, telephone exchanges beginning with two letters, or dressing up to go on an airplane.
But while the telegraph bridged global and local in a way the Internet has only refined, some saw its dark side right from the start. Pondering transatlantic links, Thoreau grumbled that "perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough." Whooping cough? If only our Internet tide of celebrity semi-news, exposes of lying writers and fingers-in-the-ears political ranting washed up anything that substantive.
The Web didn't need to exist for the telegraph to cease to exist: It was the fax machine that dealt the fatal blow, with cheap international calls, email and instant messaging just dance steps atop the grave. But the Net did offer something fundamentally different: the ability for anyone to create information and send it world-wide. The result is today's Web in all its brawling, fascinating, erudite and obscene glory, offering that broad, flapping ear a near-infinity of chattering mouths.
The Web has pushed us into the earliest stages of a redefinition of what news is and who reports it...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
R.I.P
I remember when Telex was leading edge.
Anyone know the contents of the last message?
In a way it's a shame, though. My first job (other than paper routes) was as a Western Union messenger. I bicycled for two-and-a-half hours every day, M-F, and 8 hours on Saturday for minimum wage, at that time $1.25/hour. On Mother's Day, the only Sundays I worked, I might cycle 10-12 hours.
I was 6 feet tall and weighed 120 pounds the day I graduated from high school and quit the job for a summer of fun before starting college. I gained 30 pounds that summer. And unfortunately have never looked back.
I think the first telegraph message sent read "What hath God wrought?" You'd think the last one might be something memorable -- Good night and good luck, So long and thanks for all the fish, something!
What hath God wrought"?
On May 24, 1844 Morse sent the telegraph message "What hath God wrought" (a Bible quotation, Numbers 23:23) from the Supreme Court room in Washington, D.C. to his assistant, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore, Maryland.
WU's current business is money transfers (from the US to Mexico)
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